


Not Quite Lost After All

by inthisdive



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 00:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7197800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthisdive/pseuds/inthisdive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stephanie Brown shows up back in Gotham, full of secrets, an old friend with new secrets of her own is still there to be found and greeted again. This was written in 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite Lost After All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Havok (Havok452)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havok452/gifts).



No one had told Cassandra the news, but the moment she'd seen the purple cape against the Gotham skyline once more, she _knew_. Stephanie Brown was back, and that was an absolute certainty. No one else fit against the wind the way she did. No one else held her exact shape, her figure, her shadow. 

This was certainty enough to even bring Cass out of her solitude, reaching the rooftop she knew Steph was swinging towards a good fifty seconds before she touched down. She perched on the gutter - crouched low and curious - waiting. 

She was out of sight, but Cass heard the thud of Steph's landing, not as loud as you would expect, and she heard her breathing, the tempo quick. She felt Steph cock her head and go still. The ghost of a smile crossed Cass's lips: Steph obviously knew she wasn't alone.

“Show yourself,” she commanded, and what a surprising ache it was for Cass to hear that voice again, sounding oh so sure of itself, but with _confidence_ , rather than the bravado it used to possess. Not a single tremor, either. Stephanie Brown. The Spoiler. 

Cass’s friend.

An ache. Cassandra Cain didn’t ache. And if Cass hadn't been Cass, she would have been overcome. Instead, she simply sidled out of the shadows, one hand extended. Silent. 

“Batgirl.” It was Steph's turn to stare, pushing her hood back. Somehow, the moonlight found Steph's blonde hair and it glowed. She leaned forward, taking in, Cass thought, everything about her. “Batgirl. Cassandra Cain?” 

Cass nodded. 

“ _Cass_.” Steph grinned at her, suddenly all girl. “Cass, oh my god!”

Cass nodded again. 

Steph flung herself forward and hugged Cass, her purple cape billowing, enveloping them both. Cass stood stiffly, but after a moment even she had to pat Steph's back - taking something from this, too. 

“I didn't die,” Steph said quietly, stepping back and looking at her closely, as though she could see right through Cass's mask and into her soul. “I had to – it was a thing. Do you understand?” 

There was a pause, Cass beginning to process. Steph had needed to disappear... that, she could understand. She nodded. 

The pinkish sheen of relief tinted Steph's cheeks, and she gave Cass another of those generous smiles, the kind that smiled for the both of them. “I thought you would. I promise I'll explain everything.” 

Cass just held out her hand, palm up. She didn't need to hear it. 

“No?” 

Cass shook her head. Steph didn't have to explain herself to her. That grace was one Steph had granted Cass more than once; it was the least she could do to return it. 

“Thanks,” Steph said, with a quiet gratitude, and she took Cass’s hand, leading her to the edge of the roof so they could sit and let their legs dangle over the side. It was girlish and barely familiar; when they sat, Cass dropped her hand.

“People aren’t happy,” she continued, after a few moments of silence, and Cass looked up at her. They both knew which two she meant when she said ‘people’.

“They… are suffering,” she said, quietly, and she could feel Steph’s grin before it even crossed her lips. 

“ _There’s_ your voice!” 

Underneath her mask, Cass even smiled. 

“Seriously, so, forget about them, I don’t even care. I can’t believe I’m sitting here again. Hanging out with Batgirl and forcing her into talking to me. You have no idea how much I missed you!” 

“You too,” Cass told her quietly, and it was true. She really had missed Steph, though she didn’t really miss people, and she really wished that she’d been somewhere in Gotham, somewhere around – especially in the past year. Cass wondered briefly how she would tell Steph that she wasn’t ‘good’ any more. 

There seemed only one way to begin: with slow, careful movements, Cass reached her hands up towards her own face, fingertips meeting leather, stitching. 

Steph tilted her head to the side, her blonde hair streaming out like a celebration. “What are you…?”

Her eyes closed, Cass let her fingers watch, speak, for her: she removed her mask and turned her head to face Steph. The air was cool on her cheeks and her short black hair joined Steph’s in its dance on the breeze, but the moonlight slid over it, around it: Cass didn’t glow. After a moment, she opened her eyes and blinked, letting them settle on Steph. 

A long silence. 

“Hi,” Steph finally said, and her smile was sad, now, but sincere. 

“Hi,” Cass echoed, looking Steph over with care – looking for what might lie behind her eyes, if there were any changes she didn’t know about yet. If Steph could understand what she’d done without knowing why. 

“Something’s wrong?” Steph asked, the lilted question in her voice stirring, gentle. 

Cass paused. She wasn’t sure if ‘wrong’ was the right word. She was different. She knew that everyone was different since they’d last seen their Stephanie, that she wasn’t the only one who had changed; there was even Batman, of all people, that was different. Cass had killed again, but was that wrong with the world the way it was – with Cass herself the way she was? All Cass knew was that she didn’t have the words to even begin to explain her situation, her world, her thoughts – and that she would never have the words or the grasp on language to even begin telling Steph what she wanted to know. 

Steph did deserve an answer, though, so Cass just shook her head. “No.” 

“You look…” Steph began, lifting her hand – fresh calluses from swinging dotting the palms with a new texture, still somehow less than rough – to gently rest it on Cass’s cheek. “It’s okay…” 

“I know,” Cass said with difficulty, barely above a whisper. Her eyes closed again and when they did her face was unlined, relaxed as though in sleep. 

“I’m here. Nothing else matters, okay, Batgirl? I’m here, Cass. I’m here.” And Steph’s voice was low and with a courage Cass could almost taste on her tongue; Steph was trying to comfort her, she knew, and the surprise to Cass was that it was working. She could feel Steph’s words under her skin in a way she knew couldn’t belong to the language but rather, what lay behind it. She could feel Steph’s concern and affection in waves, as tremors beneath her hand on her cheek, pulsing as steadily as the blood in Steph’s veins. 

Cass could read people. Right now, she could read Steph comforting her, and it was frighteningly beautiful. After a moments hesitation, she even gave into it; curled into Steph’s side, her cloak a billowing cloud of purple surrounding them both, shielding them from the world, Batman’s two lost girls. 

Steph sighed and drew her arm around Cass’s small waist, and Cass thought her body felt so coiled next to Step’s generous one. When Steph led Cass’s head to rest in the crook of her shoulder she didn’t argue; when Steph’s hand found Cass’s hair and started stroking, gently, Cass didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry, you know.” Steph’s words floated out into Gotham and settled over the city. Cass could almost breathe them in, this genuine guilt in a city of sin. She could taste the words, too, because Steph made her synaesthetic, and she knew that the apology wasn’t just for her. It was for Bruce and Tim and the family; it was for their city, it was for leaving and disappointing, it was for Steph herself. 

There were moments when Cass remembered how she wasn’t like other people, but then Steph would give her gifts like this; Steph reminded her that honor and guilt and shades and gray belonged to them.

This time, it was Cass’s turn. She looked up at Steph and, very seriously, lay a soft and beatific kiss on her forehead. “No… saying sorry,” she told her, quietly. “Trust… yourself.”

Cass could feel Steph move with her and watched her closely as she took her hand back to Cass’s cheek and then added another to the other; cradling her face, her eyes wide and matched. Steph nodded, and she was so close to Cass that she could feel the puffs of her breath, visible as they left the warmth of her lips.

She waited.

Steph smiled. The smile was startling in its sweetness, its sadness – bruised, but not broken. Cass felt herself crack and shift, and she smiled back in her own way – broken, but not irreparable.

Comforted, the girls blinked and turned their vision to the skyline, ever watchful. They sat, and this time, when Steph reached for Cass’s hand, Cass didn’t let go.

*


End file.
